ExpressCard / 34 slot vs Firewire 800

[Sjogogo]

I need a new computer for HD-editing.
I consider buying a 15'' Macbook Pro, but the new model doesn't have a ExpressCard 34 / Slot.
I have heard that you need this to connect an external hard-drive, if you're going to edit uncompressed HD.
But isn't it possible to use Firewire 800, if you edit in a proxy-format and then convert the proxy-files to the original uncompressed HD-files just before rendering?
Thanks in advance.
Sjogogo

[DirectorSG]

You don't need an ExpressCard/34 slot to connect a hard drive unless it's eSATA. Most external drives connect via USB, FireWire and/or eSATA depending on the configuration. The other difference between the connection configurations is transfer speed. In terms of slowest to fastest, it would be USB2 (480 Mbit/s), FireWire 800 (800 Mbits/s) and eSATA (3Gbits/s). I've done Uncompressed SD edits on a FireWire 800 RAID drive, but I don't think that would be fast enough for HD uncompressed editing.

I've never done a proxy edit before, but I would think you could use the ProRes 422 (proxy) codec, and you can edit that on a USB2 drive, let alone FW800.

[dizzie]

Can you expand on what you mean by uncompressed HD? Is it in MPEG2 or truly raw DV?

[peckinpah]

I'm sure you don;t mean true uncompressed which will be too much for fw 800. But assuming you mean the codec native to your camera HDV (which is mpeg 2) or AVC (mpeg 4), you will be able to work with it over 800. However, you will probably want to re-encode everything to a more practical format like Apple's ProRes, assuming you're running Final Cut, as the mpeg variants are a bit less friendly with editing software. With ProRes, you'll be fine over 800 too.

If you're using premiere CS5, you might be able to work with native clips, but I can't say this from experience as I haven't tried it yet.

One other consideration with respect to the express slot, which was briefly touched on above:

eSATA or USB 3.0 (coming eventually to Mac) offer huge speed improvements over firewire and USB 2.0 (not to mention how much more common - and cheaper - both of those standards are thanks to widespread adoption in the PC world). Also, if you're importing HDV over your firewire bus, where will you plug in your external drive. I'd suggest getting the 17" with the express slot just to have another place to plug in fast storage.

[peckinpah]

"if you edit in a proxy-format and then convert the proxy-files to the original uncompressed HD-files just before rendering?"

Also, with ProRes, you have basically a broadcast quality codec that is practically lossless, allowing you to avoid ever working in uncompressed. Something like the AJA IO HD could allow you to output the pro-res from the macbook pro onto a professional deck.